A gentle commute
I arrive earlier than normal in London, so decide to take my time on my walk to the office. I’m happy to follow the south bank of the Thames. It feels miles away from the crowds and rush of the station. At this time of the morning, there’s a peace to my walk. The skatepark, filled with the clatter of skateboards in the evening, is silent. The path is dotted by the empty shells of the Christmas market stalls, turkey legs and hot drinks not available until later in the day.
I drift along, pleased to have the time to take in the London sights on this beautiful crisp morning. The City skyline rears up in front of me. There’s something about the sky’s blue this morning and the collection of towers that remind me of Chicago or Boston on a winter’s day, taking me back momentarily to years living in the US. Looking back the other way, to Waterloo Bridge, I’m transported immediately back to London. The bridge is filled with a traffic jam of stationary red buses, as if on parade for the eager early morning tourists.
There’s a momentary crash and roar and clatter of noise as I pass under Blackfriars bridge, and then I’m back to the quiet. Even at my leisurely pace, I envy the photographer who can spend minutes, hours, waiting for the right shot. Or the man with a set of golf clubs on his back who strolls casually past. I’m not sure where he was planning to play, but he clearly was going nowhere near an office.
There’s still time for more before I reach my desk. There’s a moment when the sun strikes directly on the tallest building in the City, its glass façade appearing to disappear into a fierce ball of light which reflects intensely across nearby buildings and along the river. A pack of seagulls scavenging on the shore are caught up in it, some of them the normal white and others a bizarre shade of pink, innocent collateral of the sunlight’s reflection on something colourful.
And then more surprises, little moments that speak to London’s ability to marry both the hard and soft, both endless development and tiny pockets of nature. The leaves pressed so fiercely by passing buses and taxis into the road that they appear like premature fossils. The last roses in the garden of St Pauls cathedral hanging on in defiance of the frosty mornings. The window boxes full of winter flowers of office buildings and apartment blocks alike. Small moments to take with into the grey cubicles of the office.
Lunchtime scenes
It’s lunchtime. I have a few minutes to get away, never understanding those people whose routine is to work, eat lunch at the office and go straight back to work. I need to be out, even if I have to make do with the city rather than the countryside.
Today, it’s still cold in the early afternoon, so I try to seek out the strips of the sun that fight their way through the high-rises. There’s an intensity to the sun in these patches, warm enough to sit in if most of them weren’t found in the middle of busy streets. My sun-led route takes a random path. I have no particular destination in mind, other than to keep moving.
New architecture – especially the all-glass office buildings – lends a new perspective to these city walks. There’s nowhere for people in their offices to hide, particularly from the elevated walkways around the Barbican. As I walk, I can peer into rows of offices. There’s the men in their gilets staring blankly at a computer screen. The groups in the office canteens enjoying their £12 tub of salad or vaguely Asian fusion something or other. The piles of forgotten boxes and junk in forgotten corners. Everything on show, no room left for the imagination.
At university, I used to find the idea of the Parisian flaneur – Baudelaire’s gentleman stroller and observer in the streets of the French capital – a pretentious concept, something invented only to inflict hours of unnecessary study of French literature on half-cut students. But here, I’m sure my professors will be delighted, I can see the point. The flaneur would have a field day, invisible in the crowds of London, but with endless vignettes of modern life to observe.
A train to catch
In the evening I beat a more determined path back to the station. I’ve a train to catch and don’t want to be home too late: I want to enjoy some time with the family before bedtime. I enjoy London nights at this time of the year, though. There’s a Dickensian feel – from a distance at least – to its burrows of narrow and winding streets, all cosy lights and increasingly full of Christmas decorations. But the modern plays its parts as well. The lights of the city’s buildings play on the Thames and accentuate its role as the heartbeat of London.
As I get closer to Waterloo, I’m swept up in the crowds again. The elbows come out and I push for the ticket barrier. There’s a seat on the train to secure, and this is no time for a leisurely pace.